Posted on 03/07/2017 7:54:56 AM PST by IBD editorial writer
Health Reform: Seven years after vowing to repeal ObamaCare, Republicans have labored to produce plan that replaces ObamaCare with …. ObamaCare.
The plan released Monday — called the American Health Care Act — has some good parts. It repeals ObamaCare's multitude of largely hidden but no less destructive taxes on health insurance plans, medical devices, flexible spending accounts and so on. It gets rid of ObamaCare's individual mandate and the job-killing employer mandate.
It expands the amount of money that can be contributed to Health Savings Accounts, the one health reform that has actually worked to lower costs. It's age-based, refundable tax credit for individual insurance is an improvement over ObamaCare's unpredictable, Rube Goldberg subsidy scheme.
But, as Vox.com's Sarah Kliff noted: "A curious thing has happened to the Republican replacement plan as it has evolved through multiple drafts: it has begun to look more and more like ObamaCare itself."
We'd go further and say that this bill would end up putting Republicans on record as supporting all the key elements of ObamaCare:
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
I’m going to see what the final result is.
It’s better than what we had, but it still sucks. It’s a start, though.
Start mailing the WH and Congress and make your voices heard; don’t just kvetch on FR.
I remember a discussion in a college Philosophy class back in the 1960s. It was about the ethics of developing cures for diseases that not everyone could afford.
Republicans just cannot bring themselves to repealing entitlements for the Takers. The media would depict them as meanies. They are cowards.
The uniparty strikes again.
There is not one scintilla of difference between the gop-e and the rat-e.
Drain the swamp.
If you use Obamacare, which is a welfare system, you should not vote, period, and show wish to eventually get your own insurance.
“Excuse me, but for 8 years Rush and everyone else has been saying “Get rid of the individual mandate and Obamacare is dead.”
Yup.
“Now that’s suddenly not true?”
That was my point too.
The Mandate was the main thing to get rid of, they’ve done it!
Everything else is just nitpickting.
If you don’t like the plan, then just imagine what we would be facing if Hitlery won.
They PASSED IT by ‘reconciliation’ with only 51 votes- we can repeal it the same way.
They used the worst trickery I have ever seen to get it passed. Something of this magnitude required 60 votes. But they some how sent it back and said OK the original form will only require 51...
REPEAL THE STUPID THING FIRST
THERE IS NO CONSEQUENCE OF REPEALING IT THAT IS WORSE THAN KEEPING IT FOR ONE MORE DAY.
CURRENT COST PER ‘INSURED’ IS $400,000
“They PASSED IT by ‘reconciliation’ with only 51 votes- we can repeal it the same way.”
You don’t seem to get it that we don’t have 51 votes to repeal anything! At best we have 45 we can depend on.
We certainly dont need 60 though.
But the individual mandate can be re-instated by the next congress
Watch... As it starts to implode, they will Oops we need to EXTEND it
Rush mentioned something today in passing that stuck with me. He said US senators must fundraise EVERY DAY. Reelection is their first, second and last purpose. If they pass a constitutional law, it is an accident.
Someday - term limits.
Now - state nullification of clearly unconstitutional federal acts (power of state sovereignty confirmed by the tenth amendment).
The tenth amendment confirms that any power not delegated to the feds by the Constitution or prohibited to the states belong to the states and the people of those states. So any federal act that clearly assumes unconstitutional power (there are many such acts) are ACTUALLY powers of the states. So constitutional state sovereignty as confirmed by the tenth amendment allows nullification and voiding unconstitutional federal acts because those acts impinge upon the constitutional powers of the states.
Law school makes no distinction about federal law. There you're taught that generally all federal law is superior to state law (with the caveat of the Erie Doctrine). (But then law school doesn't really teach you the Constitution as written an originally understood an intended.)
But the Constitution does make a distinction about federal law.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof...shall be the supreme Law of the Land. (Id.)
If Congress passes constitutional ("in pursuance") legislation then that legislation is the supreme (or "superior") law of the land. The states have no constitutional grounds to reject such law and that has been the problem is times past with so-called state nullification.
But if Congress does not legislate according to and within the confines of the Constitution, then their legislation is not "made in pursuance and, therefore, not constitutionally the supreme (or superior) law of the land. In that case, the states, or another federal branch, may challenge the act with reasonable constitutionally-based rationale.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.